Most people in this hobby valuate their pack openings wrong. Unless you are a professional flipper, you most likely will lose your drawls speculating in the short-term eventually. If you look at the USAACCCI components, you will notice it only includes a few cards at significant quantities. When you are starting small, you don’t have the luxury of diversifying away systematic risks. What you need is an agile, scalable and sustainable collection of compatible assets within a portfolio that could appreciate significantly and frequently exponentially and mitigate downside risks. The biggest downside risks in this hobby is from high transactional costs of selling cards with disparate markets. Those big lots of random superstars and rookies are always hard to sell and frequently have little price stickiness synergy among them. It’s like selling condoms next to the banana. Sure they seem to have synergy but in actuality the market for those who practically desire that type of synergy at any given time is very small, it’s only huge when people are drunk. I would only give away cards to coworkers if they are very close to me in terms of workplace dynamics like your colleague in the same department or those who you work closely with. Do not randomly give cards out for free.
This will cheapen your gift in the eyes of those who actually believe they kind of deserve getting the gift from you due to their merit and proximity to you in a professional setting. Give them only things that current value, do not think the long-term for them. Most of the time advancement in life and career are tactical maneuvers. I recommend giving people well-known legend cards that are already very collectible. New rookie cards don’t equivalent much value in people’s heads. I also recommend fixing up a huge bag or tote container of cards from different sports and TCG games. There kids or even themselves will most likely love the mystery box feeling plus the kids will learn by doing research on the cards which their parents will most likely highly appreciate. Just think about your own childhood. You probably don’t remember which aunt brought you a muffin once or twice but you certainly remember that one time you got a huge bag of toys that you like. Parents can live vicariously through their kids in that manner too and will certainly remember what you did for their kids. On the flip side, how much can you get from selling those kids and how much appreciation will you get by giving these cards away to random strangers or to a donation center? The appreciation and mutual impact are almost always exponentially more when giving these away to related party.
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Here is how I would handle each type of cards pulled from packs:
- Bulk: Use the bulk as a basis to create a large tote container. Bulk are basically common to non-common/non-GOATesque cards that are not high-end special insertions. Modern card sets have a lot of undesirable inserts that are practically worthless. I recommend to be more generous with pulling cards of star players bulk cards. Include a few GOATesque base cards.
- Rookie cards from recent draft class: Keep regardless of the price unless you believe some of the cards are outrageously and irrationally overpriced, in that case you could either sell or give away to related parties like your bosses’ kid via your boss.
- Numbered cards: Keep these regardless. These cards even if there are a billion variation of similar cards are still technically limited production runs unless we are talking about those /10,000+ issuances in that case it’s an owner’s choice type of decision.
- Autographs: Most people like autos of stars even if they don’t know them because they think it’s cool as a show and tell piece and could be worth something down the line. I think these are valuable but without knowing them issuance size like with numbered cards, it’s a bag of mysteries which some people do like. I think if you are going to give away something even via a mystery lot there probably has to be a card that people can chase or hope to find. Giving away autographs, when research is comprehensively done and worth is rationally determined, might not be a bad idea.
- RPAs, #’d autos and other high-end insertions: I would intentionally put a few of that sort of card into the pile with sleeves and top loaders. I wouldn’t put anything too crazy in but I’d probably put something between $30 to $200 into those.
Card valuation is both an art and a science like finance itself. Being the greatest of anything is about being great at what you do and at the same time transcend beyond your professional greatness into the lives of the everyday person. Some players may be good at what they do but they are not transcendent due to a variety of factors some are controllable like actions and others like demographic groups aren’t. Many in the industry also struggle with valuation of impact and professional greatness. Some people believe it’s the championships, some people believe it’s the stats and some believe it’s both. The reality is most GOATs are elite athletes with various skill sets and comparative strength. The difference is timing. An athlete doesn’t choose to be born in a certain era where their skills are more or less valued or to be on a certain team in a certain era being on the same team with certain players, coaching staff, front office, ownership and fan base. But you know what, if you want to stay long-term in this hobby, you are going to have to understand the dynamics of all of this to determine their GOAT probability.
Most people analyze the superficial achievements aspects but couldn’t figure out what types of players have high probability of achieving those stats lines. Yamal is 19, already won a World Cup, a European championship, and already has nearly 50 senior career goals while playing for arguably the greatest football team ever. In fact, he scored more goals than both Ronaldo and Messi at this age by a wide margin and when adjusted for competition in era and league, he probably score more competitive goals than Pele and Maradona did at the same age. But you know why some legends are legends of a sport but not transcending global cross-generational-demographically household names? I will leave that one for you to figure out and I won’t say much about Yamal. But you probably know a bit about Spain and Western world’s history with certain aspect of Yamal’s lifestyle.
Some of the media sensationalism captured on video probably didn’t help with the likeability aspect either. I think Yamal is going to be a great player as he has all the resources both innately and externally to become great in the sports. I just don’t think he will be transcendent. He will probably end up in the same class as Mbappe but above Neymar. Here is something about respect. Even during times of war, imperialism and colonialism, the way people and organizations carry themselves change opinions. You don’t need to look any further than contrasting the difference between British colonialism where many colonized nations are still part of their huge Commonwealth organization including some do the biggest countries in the world like India, Canada, Australia, Nigeria and South Africa among 50 plus countries with over two billion in population. Then look at the French, Dutch, Portuguese, Belgians and even the Spanish. Civility is not just being kind, it’s about being strategic about your intentions and maximizing your interests without unduly harming it along the way.